It kinda looks like the only actually gaming-focused Nvidia GPU we’re going to be left with next year is an RTX 5070 Ti. And even then only at a massively inflated price point. That’s my personal takeaway from the rumours of the RTX 5090 being axed in favour of shifting GB202 GPUs to professional RTX Pro cards, and of a 24 GB RTX 5080 being brought in to replace the 16 GB version in early 2027.
This comes from almost a throwaway paragraph towards the end of a post on Benchlife about the bye-bye of the RTX 5090 from commercial production. According to the Taiwanese outlet, add-in board/card partners (AIBs or AICs) have been informed, verbally, that while they don’t have anything concrete as yet, a 24 GB RTX 5080 will have its “product development data” released soon.
So, folks such as Asus and MSI have reportedly not been told much about the proposed new card, and that I would therefore take to mean we are nowhere when it comes to actual production right now. But, given that 24 GB was the VRAM quotient for a previously proposed RTX 5080 Super, there’s a good chance those partners already have pretty much all the info they need to be able to spin up production in good time for a Q1 2027 launch.
But these are still naught but rumours, and the RTX 50-series Super/refresh has been on and off again more times than a six month-old Windows 11 machine trying to finish an update. So, I would still not be able to guarantee we’re going to see one silicon iota of a new GeForce GPU in 2027. That’s despite leaky personality, Moore’s Law is Dead, stating their sources claimed an RTX 6090 launch is due in the first half of next year.
But, after a fallow 2026, I could see a GPU refresh of this type landing around or just after CES in 2027. It’s not a big release, or even a gaming-centric release, even if it’s noted as a GeForce graphics card. That’s because the GB203 chip inside the RTX 5080 is already being fully utilised, so any new card will not have any higher core counts, and therefore isn’t going to deliver any real gaming improvements.
What will benefit from having 24 GB of fast VRAM are the local AI models well-heeled builders want to use. Those builders who don’t want to fork out for the sorts of high-end professional cards all the GB202 GPUs are being funnelled towards. If this is the way of things, then those users will go for the 24 GB RTX 5080 where once they would have plucked the RTX 5090 from the shelves.
All future GB202 supplies are RTX Pro exclusiveOctober 10, 2026
Benchlife seems to be suggesting that as well as the RTX 5090, the standard 16 GB RTX 5080 will be end-of-life’d, too. Which means the top two cards of the RTX Blackwell generation will be effectively tied off for gamers, leaving just the RTX 5070 Ti, with its $1,500 sticker price, as the top-end choice for us PC peeps.
Nvidia giveth and Nvidia taketh away. And then taketh away again, I guess.